Carmel-based KAR Auction Services announced Sept. 19 that it has outgrown its headquarters and will break ground next year on an innovative $80 million complex along the U.S. 31 corridor with space for up to 400 additional employees.
Scheduled to open in late 2019, the fast-growing company’s new 13-acre campus will house a 250,000-square-foot office building with an open floor plan and state-of-the-art workspaces as well as a three-season outdoor courtyard, all designed to encourage creativity and collaboration. The site at the northeast corner of Illinois and West 111th streets is about 2 miles south of the current headquarters at 13085 Hamilton Crossing Blvd., which houses 900 employees.
“We need to build for the future,” KAR Chairman and CEO Jim Hallett said. “I want an office experience that inspires our employees each and every day.”
Gov. Eric Holcomb and Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard joined him for the announcement event at The Palladium at the Center for the Performing Arts.
With annual revenue of more than $3 billion, KAR is a global provider of services and technology solutions for the wholesale used-vehicle industry. The company employs 17,400 people at 300 sites in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the United Kingdom, including 1,600 Hoosiers at its 10 auction and office locations in Carmel, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Plainfield and South Bend. In the past five years, KAR has added 700 jobs in Indiana and more than 5,000 worldwide.
Holcomb thanked Hallett and his colleagues for their decision to keep the headquarters in Indiana.
“You could have chosen very easily to go anywhere in the world,” Holcomb said. “I will wake up every day and work hard to make sure you know that trust is not misplaced.”
To that end, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. is offering nearly $6.5 million in conditional tax credits and up to $500,000 in training grants based on KAR’s stated plan to create new technology and data-related jobs that pay 50 percent more than the state’s average wage. The city plans to use tax increment financing from the project to help fund related infrastructure improvements.
